[Timocrat]

My uncle Lloyd made it over and back 21 times

He was lucky. The attrition rate for both the USAAF and RAF Bomber crews was horrendous.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Back home in Toledo, he was used to getting up early. He reported to the post office to sort mail at 4:30 and was dropped off by the mail Jeep driver at the start of his route by 7 AM.
He walked the neighborhoods, gathering his sorted mail and putting it in residential mail boxes.
Done by 2:30 or 3pm, he'd head home and return calls for plumbing jobs, working till 6pm...
Six days a week !

[Calvin Locke]

You do know that part of the US attrition was in the secondary purpose of attritting Luftwaffe pilots and aircraft in advance D-Day?

IOW, the bombers were also used as bait, so I'm guessing that the "less hazardous" round-trip routes weren't always utilized.